The KAE recently ran outrageous print ads claiming that Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Vladamir Putin are smiling because the Kansas state government rejected the new coal plants and would now have to rely on Iran, Russia and Venezuela for natural gas imports.

The KAE failed to mention that Kansas does not currently import any natural gas from these countries and in fact receives well over three-quarters of its gas from Canada.

The KAE also failed to mention that coal giant Peabody Coal and the local coal-fired electrical company that lost the bid to build the two new coal plants picked up most of the tab for the advertisements.

Rep. Powell said a recent study shows that over the next 50 years, “atmospheric CO2 enrichment will boost world agricultural output by about 50 percent.”

The Idso's are not well known for their science, as much as they're known for their willingness to issue “reports” for coal industry associations like the Western Fuel Association. The Fuels Association paid the Idsos $250,000 to produce a video, “The Greening of Planet Earth,” which argued global warming could be good by extending the growing season.

The Idso's Center has also received grants from oil-giant ExxonMobil in the past.

I don't know exactly which report on the benefits of CO2 on plants Rep. Powell is referring to, there are numerous on the Idso's site.

However, one would think that when elected representatives are looking for scientific research they would look to peer-reviewed scientific journals, the experts in the field, instead of relying on reports they find on websites.

As for the claim that C02 is good for us Jerry Glover, a soil scientist with the Salina-based Land Institute, said Powell is mistaken by thinking increased C02 in the atmosphere will help agriculture.

“At this point, no one knows all the details of the impact of global warming on agriculture, but it’s stacking up increasingly that it is not going to be entirely positive,” Glover said.

Glover said crops need more than C02 to survive. Global warming will increase temperatures in some regions, which means crops will need more water.

And climate change will disrupt distribution of water in unpredictable ways, which will decrease yields.

Previous Comments

Larry Powell and the Idsos should get a little bit more up to date on the biochemistry of photosynthesis. The older studies showed that the enzymatic activity of isolated RUBISCO (the enzyme responsible for the fixing of CO2 into organic metabolites) was increased at higher temperatures and higher CO2 concentrations. They argued that this would be good for agriculture since it would allow for higher yields (forget about water and available nitrogen for now). However, there were always problems in getting reproducible levels of RUBISCO activity (preparations had to be aged and/or treated to give maximum activity).

Later research has shown that there is another layer of regulation affecting RUBISCO activity (as is common with many enzyme system). A new enzyme, RUBISCO activase, was found to be responsible for converting “inactive” to “active” RUBISCO. And, surprise surprise, this new enzyme was found to be inhibited by higher temperatures and also inhibited by higher CO2 concentrations.

This finding is probably responsible for the contradictory results found in experiments where varying temperatures and CO2 concentrations on plant growth have been conducted.

So the Idsos and Powell should heed the warning “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” especially in biochemistry.

if they mean just dumping it into the atmosphere. An engineer could figure out how to funnel the CO2 into greenhouses to get more of a boost. A smarter engineer could figure out how to do it without releasing the extra CO2 into the atmosphere.

Although the myth of crop benefits is covered elsewhere, like in the New Scientist,

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11655 ,
this suggestion can be examined based on the numbers alone. Think about it - is this right? If we assume that we are talking about a massive energy plant, such as the Martin Lake station in Texas, or Miller plant in Alabama, we could be talking about around 18 million metric tons of CO2 per year.

If I am not mistaken, the US output is around 150 times that amount. If we add a some other nations who are producing significant amounts, it would be clear that the output of the hypothesized massive Kansas coal burners would be something like 0.2% of the total, probably even less than that. So the negative impacts would be experienced globally, and the presumed (but probably false) local benefits of Kansas coal burning to Kansas (and area) crops would depend on the assumption that plants would respond to a tiny increase from this new plant. No such plant growth effect has ever been shown experimentally, after such a small increase. So, expect a large global (and locally delivered) negative impact, and a tiny and undetectable local positive booth for plants (weeds, too, by the way; and that does not yet address the SO2 and NOx).

It seems like rain and farming practices would make much more difference to crops than the diluted C02 from a single large power station.

So if I guess this correctly, the inhibition of RUBISCO activase by higher concentrations of CO2 (water and nitrogen being constant) may be the crops’ way of reducing stress by trying to grow beyond its’ capacity. Without increasing the amount of water available, the plant is more susceptible to drying having a larger area of foliage. (An evolutionary adaptation perhaps?)
So if the crops’ ability to take advantage of the increased CO2 concentration is limited by the amount of water and nitrogen available, sunlight and stable temperatures, a couple of coal plants seem only to supply the CO2 and contribute to both warming and increased airborne particulates.

I am not a scientist, I am a self-employed computer programmer with no ties to industry or government and I am confused.

Why are you so called environmentalists trying to destroy all life on this planet? What is your true agenda? Who is paying you off to lie to the world?

According to ice records, higher CO2 levels occur AFTER temperature rises. This blows your whole theory out of the water.

CO2 is not a pollutant, you waste time and money on reducing CO2 when the real pollutants are going unchecked. We should be spending the money on cleaning our air, water and land instead of paying your mortgage and car payments from all the money you scam from taxpayers and others.

At 385 ppm, CO2 is at it’s LOWEST levels in 600 million years, research shows that plant life thrives at 1000 to 1200 ppm. That means greater food production to feed all the starving people in the world.

Besides, the globe is not warming at present, we are seeing a cooling trend now and CO@ continues to rise.

Why are China (now #1 CO2 emmitter globally) and India not being pressured to reduce emmissions? This whole thing doesn’t make sense, Al Gore can have a carbon footprint 20 times larger than the average person and he buys “Carbon Off-sets” from his won company to justify his hypocracy. You people must have another agenda.

When the world realizes that it has been conned by you snake oil salemen; I hope you are all charged with fraud and sent to prison.

Possibly a troll on a green-baiting expedition? Looks like he/she went through the “10 top skeptics arguments” and re-phrased them.

OTOH, if you are for real, I_isNaN, may I refer you to http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462 as a good place to start educating yourself. When you’ve read that, come back & I’m sure someone will be glad to direct you to solid scientific sources to answer your specific questions.

Plants start to die at 250 ppm and there is no plant life at 150 ppm. I have been reading lots of stuff, and the fact is that CO2 does not cause global warning. You cannot get past that fact, all arguments that humans are causing global warming with CO2 as the cause is bogus.

If you want to try another greenhouse gas as the cause…wait, the #1 greenhouse gas is water vapour, I guess you’ll have to try another way.

A good place to start is the article on global warming hosted by wikipedia is a good primer on the subject, with well supposed scientific references. Thanks mainly in part due to the academics that contribute to the rather exceptional article by wikipedia standards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

If you want something a bit more peer reviewed, and supported by every major national and international science academies and professional societies view the IPCC report. The IPCC is near the ultimate authority on climate though they only offer summaries of the current literature and do not engage in any research themselves. The scientific consensus supports a human derived cause for the majority of the current climate change, of which CO2 is a greenhouse gas and is the primary greenhouse gas responsible. You can view the IPCC report, due warning it is technical and heavily scientific, but the following sections would be most useful to you.

“A troll on a green-baiting expedition” is someone who gets their jollies by making an outrageous denialist statement in one of these threads, just to see how people will respond.

I’m sorry, but it is very difficult to take your position seriously, given that the weight of scientific research has come down emphatically in agreement: mounting levels of CO2 being churned into the atmosphere by human activity have upset the chemical balance of the atmosphere and caused global warming. The effect of CO2 on global temperature has been recognized for more than 100 years. Have a look at the sources that Carl has recommended. You might learn something.

You think that the IPCC’s 60 or so scientists have more weight than at least 19,000 other scientists who say otherwise. The IPCC is nothing more than a political body with an agenda, how else can you explain the IPCC releasing 3 statements for policy makers and then demand that the elusive report match any tweaking they do to the statement. Where’s the report? Does that make sense to you?

You said: “The effect of CO2 on global temperature has been recognized for more than 100 years.”, that is outrageous. A Swedish scientist suggested the possibility that man made CO2 could prevent global cooling in the 70’s…remember that?

According to a graph that is used by both sides of the debate, from 1940 - 1975 global temperatures fell dramatically and the concensus was that another ice age was upon us. Interestingly CO2 levels continued to rise without decreasing. None

About 600 million years ago during the Cambrian period, atmospheric CO2 was at about 7000 ppm, during the Jurassic period the levels where between 2000 and 3000 ppm and went on a downward trend until recently. The last time CO2 was at present levels was about 300 million years ago.

Here is some reading for you,
http://www.jpands.org/vol12no3/robinson600.pdf

We can debate this until the predicted cooler temps by about 2030 will have all the chicken littles crying “global cooling”. The fact is that CO2 levels rise AFTER warming, CO2 DOESNOT cause global warming.

There is no doubt that temperatures have been on a warming trend since the mini ice age that ended in about 1680, however CO2 and most certainly humans are not responsible, and you cannot deny that fact if you check ice core evidence.

The IPCC position is supported by the following international organizations, which are generally considered the scientific authorities. It should be noted no major scientific society degrees with the IPCC consensus position. Or all of these scientific bodies also nothing more than political organizations?

Australian Academy of Sciences
Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts
Brazilian Academy of Sciences
Royal Society of Canada
Caribbean Academy of Sciences
Chinese Academy of Sciences
French Academy of Sciences
German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina
Indian National Science Academy
Indonesian Academy of Sciences
Royal Irish Academy
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Italy)
Academy of Sciences Malaysia
Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Royal Society (UK)

The following are scientific societies and organization within their own respective countries which also have endorsed the IPCC summary on the current state of understanding on climate change. The vast majority are american and likely is incomplete missing many european scientific organizations……

Union of Concerned Scientists
American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Meteorological Society
National Research Council
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
American Geophysical Union
Geological Society of America
American Chemical Society
Federal Climate Change Science Program, 2006 - commissioned by the Bush administration in 2002
Stratigraphy Commission - Geological Society of London
Engineers Australia (The Institution of Engineers Australia)US Geological Survey
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)
World Meteorological Organization
Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospherice Sciences
International Council on Science
State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC)
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
American Astronomical Society
The Australian Meteorological And Oceanographic Society
American Institute of Physics
Pew Center on Climate Change

In addition the G8 has also has supported the scientific consensus on climate change with a joint statement.

None of the above organizations are political bodies or think tanks….so explain how they also support the IPCC summary please if you could

My experience is that the AGW deniers here rarely read things that are offered in refutation of their claims. They are hit-and-runners; I’m no expert in troll nomenclature, but making a bunch of unsupported claims interspersed with insults and then failing to reply to reasoned responses is poor etiquette. You have a ton of reading to do. If you are sincere that you are “confused”, then do the reading. If that’s too much, then at least supply the sources for your outrageous claims and perhaps someone here will be able to figure out why you are so badly confused. If you are not sincere and just polluting this blog because most solutions to AGW imply policies you cannot countenance, then please waste time somewhere else.

On at least one rightwing forum, the people tend to agree with each other that global warming is not happening, CO2 is not dangerous, etc., etc., thus reinforcing their mutual ignorance. I believe it’s called incestuous magnification. So it is possible that he actually believes what he wrote and does not realise how silly his beliefs are.

I momentarily succumbed to the absurdity of your posts. Here’s something factual to chew on:

“[Tyndall’s] elementary ideas were developed much further by the Swedish physical chemist Svante Arrhenius, in his pioneering 1896 study of how changes in the amount of CO2 may affect climate. Following the same line of reasoning as Tyndall, Arrhenius pointed out that an increase in the blocking of heat radiation would make for a smaller temperature difference between summer and winter and between the tropics and the poles.
Arrhenius’s model used an “energy budget,” getting temperatures by adding up how much solar energy was received, absorbed, and reflected. This resembled what his predecessors had done with less precise physics.(15) But Arrhenius’s equations went well beyond that by taking into account another physical concept, elementary but subtle, and essential for modeling real climate change. This was what one turn-of-the-century textbook called “the mutual reaction of the physical conditions” — today we would call it “feedback.”

You can find more information about the history of climate change science at http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html#contents

That is, if you choose to bother. Hugh Campbell is quite correct in his post “Reason for replying to deniers” below – the real reason for replying to you is to make sure anyone reading this is aware of the reliable sources that contradict your fanciful claims and the absurd numbers that you toss out with such wild abandon. My impression is that you get all of your information from blogs and not from the science.

And as for debate, I don’t have to debate anything. The science is clear to anyone who bothers to invest some brain cells in reading it carefully. It is not a question of whether, it is a matter of when and how badly.

Steve L, calling me a denier with all the halocaust connotations and some sort of troll is insulting.

I have been reading, I am confused as to why people like you believe in something that science has debunked. I am confused as to why billions of dollars are being spent on reducing CO2 emmissions when we should focus on pollution, and please don’t tell me that CO2 is a pollutant, without it we all die and it is only toxic to humans at about 15000 ppm. I assume that anyone still promoting the CO2 angle is financially dependant stopping global warming.

You want sources, how about ice core records that show CO2 rises as an effect of global warming, not causing it. How about Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace or Steve McInytyre who exposed the “hockey stick” fraud.

Neither of those men are climate scientists. You claim to have done some reading, but you are too lazy to go and read what the real scientists say. If you were honest you would check out the links here and educate yourself.

CHRISTOPHERLANDSEA received his doctoral degree in atmospheric science from Colorado State University. A research meteorologist at the Atlantic Oceanic and Meteorological Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, he was chair of the American Meteorological Society’s committee on tropical meteorology and tropical cyclones and a recipient of the American Meteorological Society’s Banner I. Miller Award for the “best contribution to the science of hurricane and tropical weather forecasting.” He is a frequent contributor to leading journals, including Science, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Journal of Climate, and Nature.

DUNCANWINGHAM was educated at Leeds and Bath Universities where he gained a B.Sc. and PhD. in Physics. He was appointed to a chair in the Department of Space and Climate Physics in 1996, and to head of the Department of Earth Sciences in October, 2005. Prof. Wingham is a member of the National Environmental Research Council’s Science and Technology Board and Earth Observation Experts Group. He is a director of the NERC Centre for Polar Observation & Modelling and principal scientist of the European Space Agency CryoSat Satellite Mission, the first ESA Earth Sciences satellite selected through open, scientific competition.

RICHARDLINDZEN received his PhD in applied mathematics in 1964 from Harvard University. A professor of meteorology in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the National Research Council Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate. He is also a consultant to the Global Modeling and Simulation Group at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Prof. Lindzen is a recipient of the AMS’s Meisinger, and Charney Awards, and AGU’s Macelwane Medal. He is author or coauthor of over 200 scholarly papers and books.

HENRIKSVENSMARK is director of the Centre for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish Space Research Institute (DSRI). Previously, Dr. Svensmark was head of the sunclimate group at DSRI. He has held post doctoral positions in physics at University California Berkeley, Nordic Institute of Theoretical Physics, and the Niels Bohr Institute. In 1997, Dr Svensmark received the Knud Hojgaard Anniversary Research Prize and in 2001 the Energy-E2 Research Prize.

DR. TIMOTHYBALL is a renowned environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. With a doctorate in climatology from the University of London, Queen Mary College, England, Dr. Ball’s comprehensive background in the field includes a strong focus on the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. He is a researcher/author of scientific papers on a range of environmental issues. He has recently (December 06) co-authored a paper for the scientific journal, Ecological Complexity, with Baliunas, Dyck, Soon, Baydack, Legates, and Hancock entitled Polar bears of western Hudson Bay and climate change: Are warming spring air temperatures the “ultimate” survival control factor? He is also co-author of the book Eighteenth Century Naturalists of Hudson Bay (2004 - McGill/Queens University Press) with Dr. Stuart Houston, one of the World’s leading authorities on arctic birds.

HABIBULLOABDUSSAMATOV, born in Samarkand in Uzbekistan in 1940, graduated from Samarkand University in 1962 as a physicist and a mathematician. He earned his doctorate at Pulkovo Observatory and the University of Leningrad. He is the head of the space research laboratory of the Russian Academies of Sciences’ Pulkovo Observatory and of the International Space Station’s Astrometry project, a long-term joint scientific research project of the Russian and Ukranian space agencies.

Go here to see a petition with over 19,000 scientists.
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p1845.htm

I know that I will never influence your opinion and that’s ok, but this shows that the science is OUT and the debate is just getting started. Real scientists NEVER say the “science is in” or “the debate is over”.

As for me…the debate on this blog is over, take care and don’t let the sky hit you on the head. ;)

Anybody who still lists Tim Ball as a “credible” source on anything to do with climate except the temperatures at Hudson’s Bay Company posts during the 18th century has some serious catching up to do. Better spend your time reading up than posting out of date and inaccurate statements here. Just check out the details of Ball’s libel suit against the Calgary Herald et al. It makes interesting reading, and it is a matter of legal record that Ball has grossly inflated his credentials and has no reputation in the field that could be damaged by what the Herald printed. I can quote you the precise dates of every post Ball has held at the University of Winnipeg, and it was geography, not climatology that was his field. He also claims a Doctor of Science, rather than a Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (the correct title of his degree) from Queen Mary College. Hogwash.

As for the others, I have done extensive reading on all of these people – their research & the conclusions that they draw – ie, I have followed the science (as have many others who post here). Nothing they have written holds up against the overwhelming evidence supporting AGW.

The train has left the station, I_isNaN, and you are still standing on the platform.

FEMACK, what about the other 19,000 + names? Why did you pick only one name? Are they all on oil company payrolls?

By the way, who’s payroll are you on? Are you even a scientist? Judging from what you and your ilk have been writing here, only scientists are allowed opinions on this subject. Another reason to ignore Al Gore I guess.

Here’s another one if you have to to read this.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7081331.stm

To all you who keep saying that I don’t read, I have, I just don’t agree with you. Especially when the IPCC continues to further the it’s political agenda through misleading statements(2500 expert reviewers all agree…) and outright lies.

Maurice Strong helped create the IPCC and he most certainly has an agenda.

Two quotes from H.L. Mencken summarize the situation well.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”

This whole political process began with Margaret Thatcher who was looking for a way to convince the U.K. to go nukes so she would not have to deal with Middle East oil and the coal miners.

If you just did some reading you would know this. Come back when you’ve done some more reading.

Hey VJDon’t know how old you are but you have a very mature way of debating. BTW that was sarcasm.

So the deniers are now saying that a mini ice age will be here by 2055, you probably don’t care thou, you’ll be retired somewhere near the equator with all the carbon off-sets you scammed from the rich.

I_ISNAN I get fed up with you and your ilk when you use the Holocaust strawman in your rants against those who expose you as being both completely illiterate about science and being completely dishonest (I like the term liar to describe you and your ilk since it rhymes with denier).

Please consult an English dictionary (go to the library if you don’t have one at home) and check out the meaning of the words “deny” and “denier”. Nothing in the meaning that I can find that mentions the Holocaust. That is something introduced by the AGW deniers like you. You deny both the science and the English definition of simple words. That makes you a “double denier”.

Get a life, which brings me to the idea of “re-incarnation”. Seems like this may be happening around here.

I think you may be right on that, Ian. Funny how someone new pops up at convenient moments, just in time to trot out the same old nonsense all over again as though it’s somehow “new” that refutes the entire body of AGW science.

Here’s a link for you, read it and come back here and tell me your own hero and blog site is wrong. I dare you. http://www.desmogblog.com/james-hansen-and-the-holocaust-frame-because-not-even-heroes-are-perfect

Hey, I’ll try to be accommodating. In my previous post I wrote “AGW denier,” a phrase I’ve used rather than denier even though a little bit more cumbersome. I will hyphenate it if you want. I’m not trying to associate you with holocaust deniers. I was stating that most people who deny the existence of AGW do not read the science. I said some of them don’t do the reading that is suggested to help with their confusion. What do you suppose people like that should be called if you find “AGW-denier” or “troll” so offensive?

A couple of other short questions:
1. Who defined ‘pollutant’ as something that causes toxicity to humans at NNN ppm? At what concentrations does CO2 have a toxic effect on marine creatures?
2. How many billions of dollars have been spent reducing CO2 emissions? How many have been saved?
3. Your ‘source’ of ice core records is pretty loose. Does the fact that CO2 concentration follows temperature in the historical record mean that temperature cannot be affected by CO2? http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/02/cold-case-vs-csi/ Have you heard of precessional cycles and positive feedback?
4. What’s your opinion of the NAS review of the hockey stick? And anyway, your reference only to the past shows again that you don’t really understand the evidence for AGW.
5. Where is your source for the claim that now is the lowest that CO2 concentrations have been in 600 million years? Does such an incorrect statement make you second guess your source? Should the fact that you blurt that out here (along with some other ridiculous stuff) affect how your other statements are perceived?
6. You know Tim Ball misrepresents himself, right? It’s all there in court documents. Do you think he’s any more scrupulous regarding science?

The hypothesis of the alarmists is that man made CO2 emmissions is driving temperature, this has been debunked and you cannot get around that fact.

To refer to me as a denier is to imply that AGW is as real as the world is round. The fact is AGW has not been proven. You can call me an AGW-Skeptic.

Do you believe Mann’s hockey stick graph is credible? Do you believe computer models that cannot make accurate predictions even 10 days in the future? Do you believe models that don’t factor in precessional cycles, negative feedback or the sun?
Do you believe that Canada which contributes about 2% of man made CO2 emmissions should be required to reduce it’s emmissions while China and India are not? Does that make sense to you?

Cold case vs csi…oh please that’s all we need is more Hollywood magic to make AGW real. Your not a scientists either are you?

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.